The plan (download PDF) — which would bury I-5 between the Marquam Bridge and the Rose Quarter — is just at “concept level” and Adams says he wants to hear public feedback.

In a blog post titled, Envisioning a Future Central Eastside, Free of a Freeway, Adams said he’s releasing it for two main reasons: because the Central Eastside Industrial District is impacted by the City’s current N/NE Quadrant Central City 2035 planning process (which will likely come with widening I-5 through the Rose Quarter); and because as Transportation Commissioner back in 2004 he promised he, “would provide greater certainty to business and property owners in the Central Eastside Industrial District about the alignment for a buried east bank 1-5 freeway.”

Now Adams says, “We have identified a route that buries I-5 in place, and leaves the rest of the district intact.” Here are some bullet points of the plan, which he says “builds on earlier work” (done by former mayor Vera Katz and community groups):

Could maintain existing on- and off-ramps

Allows for a southbound on-ramp to be added in the Central Eastside Industrial District (shown at Stark St.)

Separates through traffic from local traffic; improves safety by reducing weaving movements

Rebuilds Water Avenue as functional, local-serving arterial.

While Adams’ plan does tunnel the freeway portion of I-5, it adds an above-ground arterial along the riverfront.

Adams says this could take decades for this to occur, the “future that the new concept plan portrays is undeniably appealing.” I agree!

Obviously with nine months left in his term, Adams knows he won’t be pushing this project along, but he at least wants to make some headway and keep the idea alive. “In final form, this reference document will hold the city to a single alignment should future decision makers seek to pursue a buried I-5.”

And of course, his release of the plan will be welcome fodder for many people in the community who want to see this happen – should future decision makers choose to listen to them.

NOTE: We love your comments and work hard to ensure they are productive, considerate, and welcoming of all perspectives. Disagreements are encouraged, but only if done with tact and respect. If you see a mean or inappropriate comment, please contact us and we'll take a look at it right away. Also, if you comment frequently, please consider holding your thoughts so that others can step forward. Thank you — Jonathan

66 Comments

GlowBoyApril 6, 2012 at 3:29 pm

“While Adams’ plan does tunnel the freeway portion of I-5, it adds an above-ground arterial along the riverfront.” And just exactly how much bigger — and busier — is Water Avenue going to get? At least now all the I-5 traffic is above ground level.

Agreed. Better yet, re-designate I-205 as “I-5”. Remove I-5 south of the I-84 interchange all the way to I-405 in south waterfront. Remove the Marquam bridge entirely, including the proposed “stub”.

A tunnel is too expensive. Also, it can’t be made earthquake-proof, and would require electricity to run blowers and pumps to change out the air and pump out the water. (it would be below river level, necessitating water pumps) As ugly as it is, the Marquam Bridge is the only river crossing which is currently rated to survive a major earthquake.

remove the I-5 section from I-84 to the southern I-405 interchange, including the ramps at Morrison Bridge route former I-5 thru traffic along I-405 instead (many thru drivers will travel I-205 insead as well) cap I-405 as it’s already below grade enhance/add new I-5 ramps for MLK/Grand at I-84, to replace the then-decommissioned Morrison Bridge I-5 ramps retain the Marquam bridge, for ramps to I-5, since (a) SE Portland needs access to I-5, and (b) it’s the city’s current best hope for a standing bridge after a major quake

Ugh. If you are going to bury I-5, why not tunnel under the Willamette where the Marquam bridge is now? The bridge needs to be taken down anyway. Even a new freeway bridge would be an eyesore/pollution source.

This is an excellent point. The tunnel should start on the West side, freeing up even more space around OMSI. That hefty 6% grade to their new proposed Marquam bridge would seem to be problematic.

A couple other things: -why do we need a 5-lane Water Ave arterial? The existing one works perfectly well at 2 lanes. -what to do with the railroad – as the system becomes busier, Water Ave and the waterfront will become more and more cutoff as train frequency increases. Already you can get stuck for 15 minutes waiting for a train to creep over the Steel bridge – something will need to be done about this. At least Seattle got smart years ago and put their train through a tunnel (back in 1905).

Overall I’m impressed. Lots of moving pieces to deal with, but it would do so much to restore connectivity and open up significant portions of the eastside riverfront. Now the people of Portland need to push hard for action.

I grew up with the Harbor Freeway blocking the west bank river access. People need to be reminded how much better our city can be when people wrest precious land (especially riverbanks) back from cars.

And I was in San Francisco when people thought they could never live without the Embarcadero Freeway that cut off the city from bay views and waterfront for 50 years. Once they tore it down, they couldn’t understand how they lived with it for so long.

I agree Andrew. Unfortunately, as much as Portland loves to pat its back about removing Harbor Drive, it’s hard to ignore the fact that not long after that highway was removed, Portland simply built a much worse highway on the other side of the river. I’d trade I-5 and the Marquam Bridge for Harbor Drive ANY day.

Both I-405 and I-5 were in place through the central core of the city by the time Harbor Drive was removed. One of the reasons (besides citizen involvement) they decided to remove Harbor Drive was because it was redundant. The Fremont Bridge was completed in 1973, completing the central interstate loop. Harbor Drive came down in 1974.

I think a better idea would be to combine I-5 with I-405, which could be expanded by double-decking. Then remove the Marquam Bridge eye-sore. It needs earthquake upgrading, anyway. A tunnel would be too expensive.

And I-205 is the “bypass” for Portland anyway. We shouldn’t encourage interstate commerce/travelers to drive through downtown Portland. Widen I-205 to three lanes each way, widen I-405 to four, take out I-5 between the South Waterfront and the Rose Quarter.

Since I-205 is the bypass, it should get the I-5 number. The leftover part of I-5 can be renamed I-405, and then the central bit is a redundant leftover (you can go west of it OR east of it), and can be torn down.

Yes. Only the eastbank side of the bridge was upgraded. The west bank side was saved for a future phase and the work was never done. Seismic modeling has evolved quite a bit in the past twenty years and none of the bridge meets current standards.

The report that you cite only talks about work done on the main span of the bridge directly over the river. My point was that next to nothing has been done to upgrade the all of the various connecting ramps along the west bank.

Demolishing the Marquam bridge approaches would be possible if the section of I-5 between I-405 and I-405 was simply demolished. You have THREE north-south expressways in the Portland area; two is enough!

Real vision would be removing all interstates from all large urban cores.

Sam’s plan is costly and provides little benefit to a safe and equitable society per dollar spent. It hides the problem and is more costly to maintain. Why not tear down 205 and I5 completely? Create safe local streets at 25mph max. That would not add much to a cross town trip.

Build an 805 bypass far East of Gresham. It would allow people on Interstate 5 in Salem to get to Seattle and back without blaming Portland for causing the sky to fall on interstate transit.

Great cities do not run freeways along their rivers. What does Frankfurt am Main have across the Main River from its downtown? A string of museums and greenspaces. Its about time Portland fixed this horrendous mistake from the 60’s. But Paulie has it right…just take the whole thing out Marquam and East Bank freeway, make I-405 into I-5 and call it good.

How about a trolley that picks your car up with a big electro magnet stuck to your roof, it carries north south across the river and drops you off on the other side. Then you can have back most all of the real estate. I suppose I will get deleted again. sigh

We could easilly have an east west bike tunnel if we could only convince them to route the sewers back to where they used to be, and do some serious scrubbing… A 22 ft pipe is quite wide enough to handle lots of bikes.

What does it say about leadership or inactive in our local and state government that the mayor himself admits such a project is “decades-long”. Its all a depressing pipe dream. What about Mt. Hood Freeway becoming a light rail line or removing Harbor Drive and turning it into a park? Seems as if we live in a much darker time, when almost nothing is possible.

I think the harbor drive project and maybe the Max line are examples of downsizing and decommisioning, while this project sounds like possible upsizing while sweeping the whole thing under the rug. Much more complicated. If there was consensus to remove I-5 and replace the asphalt and concrete with sod, the project would not take nearly as long. Replacing three miles of sewer line along Fanno Creek and Multnomah is taking years. Extrapolate from a six foot pipe to five and six lanes of freeway traffic.

There is definitely something wrong with leadership in our community when the biggest, ballsiest proposition from a politician as influential as a mayor comes after three-plus years of self-inflicted impotence, and only on the way out the door. A mayor who kept his nose clean and showed up ready to work on the first day might have sold and moved a project like this. Now we have another ex-Mayor to attribute grand freeway visions to.

Different times. The money for the Mount Hood freeway construction was federal money. In the 1960s, there was a lot of that money, when the US had a booming economy and cash to burn. All Oregon did was re-route the money to transit. That funding source is gone, and there are no large federal pots of money to use now like there was then. Harbor Drive went away because it was redundant – Naito Parkway was only a block away, so removing Harbor Drive had little impact on traffic conditions, and even removed some problem intersections.

Actually Naito (Front Av) was a smaller surface street at the time of Harbor Drive. When they took down Harbor Drive, they widened Front to what it currently is. I-405 and I-5 were more important to the decision to remove Harbor Drive, I don’t think Front was much of a factor. (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.)

Every project of these dimensions should consider the impact on climate change (it’s real folks). The net result should be a smaller carbon footprint. To remove that much existing freeway, and dig a HUGE tunnel, haul the dirt somewhere?, then pour concrete around steel. When it’s said and done we should see a BIG reduction in CO2, I just don’t see it? All that traffic noise? some of that traffic noise is bringing us our food, careful what you wish for. You want more bike lanes etc? This kind of project moves us further from obtaining the money we need for the bike master plan, not closer. I like to dream big too , but sometimes reality sets in and the reality is, it’s just a (pipe) dream. An out of sight out of mind freeway is still a freeway, no matter how much grass you plant on top of it.

The discussion of simply taking out I-5 on the central eastside (and redesignating I-405 to be part of I-5) has me intrigued. The Fremont Bridge is 4 lanes wide on each deck, and the surface stretch of 405 has enough pavement to provide a lot of capacity if its lane configurations were better designed. Knock the speed limit down to 45 and you’ll have less friction with vehicles getting on and off, which would also help.

I’m sure it would pour quite a bit more traffic into the west side of downtown, but I’d be curious to know what studies have been done on the overall impact.

It would take longer to travel through Portland via the freeway, but you would see a reduction in overall travel. Drivers intending to drive through Portland would shift over to I-205. Many drivers would avoid Portland because of the increased travel times. The biggest unknown I see is the east-west travel, from 26 to I-84 and back. These drivers may end up on downtown streets, as the routing over the Fremont bridge is longer and would be more congested than it is today. Again, many of these drivers may just decide to stay on their side of town to recreate/shop.

Bottom line: Portland would be a better place without I-5 on the east bank, and shutting it down and shifting the load to I-405 would not be very expensive (my guess would be less than $1 billion).

I’m glad to see everyone agrees on taking out the Marquam and the eastbank freeway, instead of replacing it with an expensive tunnel.

Politically, planning on building the tunnel is a good approach. It looks like this plan would require tearing down part of the existing freeway, before construction would begin. This offers a good opportunity to see if 3 north-south freeways are even needed.

So here’s the plan: 1) Add significant tolls ($10?) to the 1-5 interstate bridge, 205 columbia river bridge, and the Fremont and Marquam bridges. 2) If traffic on the local bridges goes up too much, add lower tolls there too. 3) Save the toll money to repair bridges as needed to meet current earthquake standards, and to repave arterial roads and freeways. If there is enough toll money left over, start saving to build new bridges. 4) Add carpool lanes, increase bus service, especially from Vancouver, and start commuter train service between Vancouver / Portland / Oregon City 5) Tear down the Marquam bridge and eastbank freeway 6) Redo the traffic studies. I expect that the removed section of freeway will no longer be needed; traffic will disappear, taking 205 for longer trips, and transit / bikes / surface streets for local trips. But if there really is enough demand to pay for it, uses tolls to pay for building a new freeway tunnel, if needed, or just to widen 405 as a cheaper alternative.

I think you mean covering I-405. Capping that was more practical then burying I-5, since I-405 is already below grade. This project would be more expensive, since it would put I-5 below river level. Not a great idea.

The time for projects like this is over. I love the idea, but let’s save our resources. This will cost way too much money just to have a few more blocks of cafes, condos, “new” and “exciting” restaurants, maybe some food cart pods! By the time this is built, we’ll all be on bikes full time anyway.

Projects like this are so far off, that they may change completely based on what the future of the automobile looks like. In fact that’s true for our whole highway system. At this point, the growth in personal autos may not justify such investment in highway systems. Then again, maybe the future will bring technological developments that allow for our continued dependance on personal autos. I tend to think society is at the cusp of headed one way or the other, but I’m not going to predict which it is.